In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

>> 1 Introduction The Problem with History It is said that Clio cannot be taken by storm, but requires much patient and skillful Wooing. Moreover, Clio likes a certain degree of self-effacement in her suitors. Charles Downer Hazen, “This Country as Mr. Chesterton Sees It,” New York Times Book Review, June 8, 1919 Clio, paramount among the nine ancient Greek muses, was gifted by her mother with memory and shared lyric skills with her eight sisters. She inspired those who assayed to sing, tell, and write stories of the past. Ancient audiences held the followers of Clio in high regard, for they captured the imagination of the listener and reader. For Hellenes gathered around the fire pit to hear Homer sing about Troy, or Hellenized Romans who delighted in reading their copy of Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, or the monks in the English abbeys who squinted in the candlelight as they re-read older chronicles of the lives of Saxon saints and kings, or the thousands of nineteenth-century middle-class families that gathered in gaslit parlors to devour the tales of heroism in Francis Parkman’s volumes , history enchanted and instructed, just as Clio wished. The Greeks defeated the Trojans; Caesar failed where Alexander the Great succeeded; Alfred the Great unified Anglo-Saxon England; and the British chased the French and their Indian allies from North America for reasons that 2 > 3 much history for us to bear. “For as long as we can discern, the past has loomed ominously above the lives of men, threatening, demanding, and hinting at cataclysm. . . . Its dark firmament has glittered with examples, a few benevolent, most doom laden. Embedded in this mass of belief, which fulfilled, as we shall see, diverse and necessary social purposes, were bits and pieces of truth.” Historians were shaken; their faith “that they could understand by a simple process of induction the forces that shaped the past now seemed dangerously naïve.”3 Weary and wary academics now warn that the student of history will suffer “bitter disappointment” if he or she seeks guidance from history. A bestsellingtextbookinphilosophyofhistoryissuedthefollowingwarning: “Historians are not the guardians of universal values, nor can they deliver ‘the verdict of history.’” A popular history of historical writing summed up thisjudgment:“[A]lwayshandlehistorywithcare.”Evendefensesofthehistoricalprofessiontodaybeginwithameaculpa :“Weprofessors,”asAmerican Historical Association President Anthony Grafton ruefully recounted the “barrage” of charges against history, “are imprisoned within sclerotic disciplines,obsessedwithhighlyspecializedresearch.Wecan’twriteexcept in meaningless jargon, and we address only esoteric students, thus insuring that we have no audience.” Not surprising, then, that Keith Jenkins, the enfant terrible of philosophy of history, found the search for the truth in historyan“unachievable”goal,misleadingatbest,for“thetruthsofthepast eludeus. . . . [H]istoryisintersubjectiveandideologicallypositioned,objectivity and being unbiased are chimeras.” This much is certain—truths that once seemed within our reach are now beyond our grasp.4 The pervasive disenchantment of the academics echoed popular perceptions of the futility of historical study. Entertaining though it might be, it was still “the bunk,” “lie,” and “one damn thing after another.” What the popular mind especially rejected was the uniqueness and authority of historical study. A popular essay on the meaning of the past at the end of the twentieth century by a nonhistorian, Francis Fukuyama, reduced history to a Swiss Army knife whose many attachments one can manipulate to fit any need, useful because they are so conveniently manipulated. Forget the 4 > 5 Repeating Henry Ford’s infamous dismissal of all history, then-Congressman Newt Gingrich aimed his fire at the professional historians: “[T]he fiasco over the American and Western history standards is a reflection of what has happened to the world of academic history. The profession and the American Historical Association are now dominated by younger historians with a familiar agenda: Take the west down a peg, romanticize ‘the Other’ (non-whites), treat all cultures as equal, refrain from criticizing non-white cultures.” The National History Standards was condemned in a 99–1 U.S. Senate vote.7 The chair of the drafting committee, UCLA history professor Gary Nash, defended the document and the process by which it had been created. He later recalled, “Those who were at first reluctant about the wisdom of this enterprise soon decided that they might compromise their own best interests if they failed to join in. If the cards were being dealt, why would historians or social studies educators not want seats around the big table?” The process was long and arduous but uplifting. “Never in the long history of public...

Share